Sunday, July 23, 2017

BUSTER AND COR!! - First merged issue (1974)

At fifteen years old in 1974 I was going through my "British comics are just for kids" phase and didn't really appreciate what a good comic the merged Buster and Cor!! was. At the time, I was beginning to "grow out" of humour comics and stopped buying Buster shortly after. In truth, Buster and Cor!! was a solid comic with some great talent working on it. At 15, I was too old for it of course, but in retrospect, looking at it from a creative viewpoint, it was one of the best comics around at that time. Let's take a look at a few of the strips from this first merged issue...One of the significant things about this issue is that the Buster strip itself saw a change of artist from Angel Nadal to Reg Parlett (who also drew the front cover). I'd grown up with Nadal's version and wasn't too keen on the change, but it can't be denied that Parlett was ideally suited to the strip and its fast paced slapstick situations...

The merger also saw some new strips starting that week that hadn't been seen in either BusterorCor!! before. One of which was Snooper, by the always-wonderful Leo Baxendale...

Whenever comics merged, it was always a concern that some favourites would be pushed out. Thankfully, Ken Reid's excellent Faceache strip had proved popular to survive. (A collection of Faceache strips will be published by Rebellion in November.)

Another new strip was Marney the Fox, written by Scott Goodall and drawn by John Stokes. It was rare for strips in Buster to tug on the emotions as much as Marney did but it made for compelling reading. (Marney the Fox is another collection coming from Rebellion this year, and the one I'm looking forward to the most.)

Val's Vanishing Cream was one of the strips that had transferred over from Cor!! and was drawn by Mike Lacey. A typical IPC humour strip in that it featured a kid with a gimmick. That could restrict the humour somewhat but this is a good episode...

This issue gave the comic the opportunity to fill in new readers with the backstory of Fishboy before he embarked on a new adventure. A kind of British equivalent to Aquaman, this is another strip by Scott Goodall and John Stokes that deserves collecting.

There was a lot of good material in this issue and this was just a sample of pages. Rebellion now own a lot of classic material ripe for reprinting so I hope that readers support the Treasury of British Comics books so that we see more!https://treasuryofbritishcomics.com

6 comments:

Lew, as a kid, I needed my head examining. In 1974, my loyalties were with DCT and I only got IPC comics when I discovered Donald and Mickey and Goofy. Why I didn't like Cor!! or Buster I don't know. They were great comics - especially at that time.

Maybe the DCT comics felt more comfortable?

Anyway, if I had access to the TARDIS I think I would go back and have a quiet word.

We all do stuff we regret in hindsight. In 1966 I dropped TV21 because I didn't like Frank Bellamy's work! (Although I did start buying Smash! instead, so that balanced out.) I've been fortunate enough to complete my set now though.

I discovered Buster when I started buying some old issues of Buster and Monster Fun at a flea market that was held at my local strip mall on Sundays. I was probably 29 or 30 at the time. I enjoyed the title and even picked up new issues when I could find them, which was difficult. The local W.H. Smith (stores are now called Smithbooks and are part of the Indigo/Chapters empire) didn't carry British comics at all.

Hey, folks! Comics!

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Established in 2006, BLIMEY! is dedicated to British comics past and present. Images are copyright their respective publishers and are only used here for review purposes.

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About Me

I work as a professional humour comics artist and writer and have been freelancing full time since 1984, creating many characters such as TOM THUG, PETE AND HIS PIMPLE, COMBAT COLIN, BRICKMAN, ROBO-CAPERS, DEREK THE TROLL, SUBURBAN SATANISTS and others.
I've freelanced for IPC, Marvel Comics, Egmont, Panini,D.C. Thomson, and many others, covering the comics field from originated characters to licensed properties, pre-school to adult on comics such as BUSTER, OINK!, BEANO, DANDY, TRANSFORMERS, SONIC THE COMIC, TOXIC, VIZ, CiTV TELLYTOTS, LEGO ADVENTURES, HERMAN HEDNING, SWEET FA, ACTION FORCE, SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN, RAMPAGE, LUCKY BAG COMIC, SWIFTSURE, WARLOCK, WHITE DWARF, ACES WEEKLY, THE DAREDEVILS, THE MIGHTY WORLD OF MARVEL, and many more.
My recent comics work has included:'Team Toxic' for Egmont's TOXIC magazine'Postman Prat', 'Kid Cops' and 'The Dark Newt' for THE DANDY'Rasher', 'Pup Parade', 'Lord Snooty' and 'Ivy the Terrible' for THE BEANO.
'The Daft Dimension' for DOCTOR WHO MAGAZINE.